The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has imposed a composition penalty of $1.9 million on Atrium Asia Investment Management (AAIM) for breaching the central bank’s anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements.
The MAS also issued a reprimand to the investment manager’s CEO, Mintarja Oei, for failing to ensure the company’s compliance with the requirements.
According to MAS, it found that AAIM’s internal policy and procedures “at the material time” were “inadequate”. As such, the investment management firm suffered multiple breaches of the central bank’s AML/CFT requirements from June 2015 to October 2020, putting the firm at risk of being misused for financial crime.
The breaches included AAIM’s failure to implement adequate processes to detect and report suspicious and unusually large customer transactions with third parties. According to MAS, AAIM also failed to implement procedures to determine if business relations with customers presented a higher risk of money laundering or financing terrorism.
In MAS’s statement, AAIM was also found to have failed to implement the appropriate internal risk management systems and procedures to determine if customers and related persons were politically exposed persons (PEPs) or close associates of PEPs. Finally, AAIM was said to have failed to implement the adequate procedures to keep records of documents and information that the company was required to obtain from customers to meet AML/CFT requirements.
Further to its statement, the central bank notes that AAIM has since taken remedial actions to address the deficiencies that were identified.
